NIAMS Update January 2014

Update

An online resource for the NIAMS Coalition, Council, and Colleagues

January 23, 2014

Introduction

The NIAMS Update is a monthly digest published for those interested in the latest scientific news and resources on diseases of the bones, joints, muscles and skin. We encourage further dissemination of this resource.

Spotlight

Last year, as part of the NIAMS National Multicultural Outreach Initiative (NMOI), we developed A Year of Health multicultural planners to make health information about bones, joints, muscles and skin more accessible to people from underserved racial and ethnic communities.

Building on last year’s success, we created health planners for 2014 targeted to four multicultural audiences – African Americans; Hispanics/Latinos; Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; and American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. The 2014 planners have been refreshed with new images, and have the same reminder stickers that were so popular last year for tracking medical appointments, blood tests, prescription refills and other important self-care activities.

News

Osteoclasts, center. Credit: Robert Colbert, M.D., Ph.D.

Bone Loss in Spondyloarthritis Linked to Protein’s Misfolding
In contrast to normal bones, the bones of people with spondyloarthritis become damaged and deformed, causing back and hip pain, as well as other symptoms. Now, scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) NIAMS have uncovered new clues to how these bone abnormalities occur.

President Obama Honors Outstanding Early-Career NIH ScientistsPresident Obama has chosen 20 NIH scientists for this year’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

PubMed Gets Interactive The NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) is bringing a new way of sharing and exchanging research information, fully integrated with the PubMed website, to a wider audience. For the last few months, NLM has been running a pilot of a commenting system for PubMed’s massive database of biomedical literature. The system, PubMed Commons, allows authors to discuss and share information through comments on article citations. Hundreds of authors have signed up as beta testers and commenters since the pilot began. While commenting will continue to be available only to authors of publications in PubMed (see this page for more details), the discussion is now viewable by the broader public.

NIH Director’s Blog

PCORnet: Meeting Clinical Trials’ Need for Speed
Comparative effectiveness research (CER) studies aim to determine what works (and what doesn’t) in the real world of clinical medicine. Such studies are essential to identify the safest, most effective ways of detecting, treating and preventing disease. Yet, both patients and researchers are often frustrated by the agonizingly slow pace at which many CER studies proceed. Under our current system, it’s often a long, costly process to identify trial sites, recruit volunteers, run the study, compile data and, finally, analyze the results. The time is ripe to revamp the way we do this.

MRSA toxin bound to nanosponge particles glows yellow inside a mouse immune cell. The cell membrane is stained red and the nucleus is stained blue.Credit: Liangfang Zhang Laboratory, University of California, San Diego

Using Tiny Sponges To Fight MRSA
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria, commonly known as MRSA, pose a serious public health threat, causing more than 80,000 skin, lung and blood infections and killing about 11,000 people annually in the United States. This microbe wreaks its devastation by secreting a toxin, alpha-hemolysin, that punches holes in the membrane of cells, essentially causing them to leak to death. Now, NIH-funded researchers from the University of California, San Diego have created tiny sponges capable of trapping and binding MRSA’s toxin. When these toxin-laden sponges are injected into mice, they serve as a vaccine—that is, they stimulate the animal’s immune system in a way that protects them from the toxin’s deadly impact.

Meetings

NIAMS Advisory Council Meeting
The NIAMS Advisory Council Meeting will be held February 11, 2014, in Building 31, 6th Floor, C Wing, Conference Room 6, NIH Campus. A meeting agenda is available here.

NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series
The NIH’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series offers weekly lectures every Wednesday at 3 p.m. in Masur Auditorium, Building 10, NIH Campus. Renowned scientists from around the globe present research on a variety of topics. The lectures are Continuing Medical Education-certified, open to the public and available live via webcast.

Upcoming Lecture:

February 5, 2014
Jenny Ting, UNC School of Medicine
“The Broad Impact of NLRs on Immunity and Beyond”

NIH Science Lectures and Events Available Online

The NIH hosts a number of science seminars and events that are available online through real-time streaming video. You can watch an event at your convenience as an on-demand video or a downloadable podcast. Most events are available to all; a few are broadcast for the NIH or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and are marked as such. See additional details on events.

NIH News in Health
Read practical health information in NIH News in Health, which is reviewed by the NIH’s medical experts and is based on research conducted either by the NIH’s own scientists or by its grantees at universities and medical schools around the country.

Who Needs a Knee Replacement?If you or someone you know is considering knee replacement, a new resource can help you understand how it works, how to prepare for surgery, and what to expect in recovery.

A Burning Issue: Handling Household BurnsAccidental burns can occur just about anywhere in your home, and they’re not always caused by fire. Take steps to prevent household burns, and learn how to treat them properly to avoid lasting problems.

If you would like to review information about funding opportunities more frequently than our monthly updates allow, see the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts, the primary source for information about NIH funding opportunities. You can also request a weekly Table of Contents from the NIH Guide.